Conquering Mt. Pulag is one of the items in my bucket list that I had always wanted to cross out ever since I first heard about it.
[Item #32]Mt. Pulag.
There!
It's the second/third highest peak in the country and the highest one in Luzon.
I've always loved sports and the idea of going on adventure trips. But I have MVP. Unfortunately, when I was diagnosed with a not-so-serious heart ailment called mitral-valve prolapse (non-classic) later in college, I kissed wild/nature adventures goodbye. It was a really bitter and upsetting realization.
But being the obstinate person that I am, I've decided to give MVP the brush off. This year I have decided to travel and go on adventures! Queber! Life is too short to be wasted in front of laptops and computers and being intimidated by non-classic MVP. As you've probably read from my previous posts, my first adventure this year was in Sagada -- we went spelunking and trekking! And I survived! I even beat some of those tourists we met there to the other end of the cave... not that it matters. hehe. It was fun, exciting, and adventureful. It was, to a T, my kind of junket.
That's for February... and for March... it was Pulag!
It was a really gaga and very impulsive decision. I was looking at this advertisement in FB from the UP Mountaineers and without flickering, I immediately signed up... and not only myself, I also signed my friends to the Talikasan adventure. The decision was ALL HEART. It was just too good to resist. Have you seen the photos online?? Sea of clouds?? Hell yeah! Betcha I'm climbing, MVP!
Preparation. Zilch! I didn't prepare physically. Uh-huh. I always had the intention, but I never really followed through on the idea. The only exercise I got was by doing brisk walks around the campus coz I was processing my papers for the visa interview -- College of Science to National Institute of Physics to the Office of the Chancellor to the HRDO and back, for three straight days! Talk about optimization and bureaucracy! Who'd have thought I'd be thanking bureaucracy somehow? Seriously though, had it not been for those long and really quick walks under the ear-splitting heat of the Sun, things could have been much worse for me in Pulag.
Borrowing stuff from friends (good thing I didn't buy any expensive climbing/camping stuff since I wasn't really planning on making it a hobby), I was all-geared up for the 2-day adventure. When we got to the ranger station (first real stop), I was starting to feel that I was gonna regret not having done my part well during the pre-climb. And my bag was freagin' heavy! I really wasn't sure that I was gonna make it to the campground. When we started the hike up the mountain, our team couldn't believe how exhausted we had already been... and we hadn't even covered half a kilometer! Geez! Such wusss. We're all so pale, catching our breaths. And we're only in the first leg. Note: all of us, not just me. All of us geeks (me and my friends). It didn't look good.
I didn't want to be the weakest link. I never want to be the weakest link. So, I tried hard and concentrated much harder in conserving my energy. Consuming energy to conserve energy. Classic. It was too painful and exhausting. We're like, "are we there yet? how far along still? can we climb down now?" Seriously. And the air was so thin! High altitude = low pressure = thinner air... I did regret (while trekking) ever deciding to go on the trip. Who am I kidding? Trekking? Really now, Erika??? Trekking?!? I was just praying that it'd all be worth it once I see the mysterious and majestic Sea of Clouds, well that is if I don't get a heart attack before we reach the campsite.
I didn't have a heart attack. And we did reach the campsite alive. I was A-okay! I was tired, dead tired, but no serious heart complications. I think I was even feeling better than some of my buddies. I didn't get a headache and my heart didn't bother me at all. We reached the campgrounds at around 3pm and setup camp right away.
After dinner (camping style, yah-huh!), there was socials, to which I didn't join because I wanted to be all prepped up for the summit ascent the day after, which by the way was scheduled at 3am. So, I hit the sack with my friend Vera earlier than the others at 10pm. Vera was complaining that she feels depressed and misses her mom, and that she's having a hard time breathing. I was concerned but I'm not sure if she felt that because I was also feeling the same but I didn't bother telling her because I was concentrating on keeping myself okay. "Mind over matter, Erika." I was uncomfortable inside the tent, not because we were in a tent, but because I was feeling something weird... anyway, I just thought of sleepin it off, hoping that things would get better the day after.
Wrong.
The scary part. I woke up in the middle of my sleep around 1AM. I suddenly felt suffocated. I couldn't breathe. I thought it was just because of the clothing layers. So I took off the top two layers of clothing and removed my blanket. I didn't know it was around 5-6 deg C outside. Then everything happened so fast. After I removed my outer jackets, I suddenly felt like I was being strangled. I kept the feeling to myself at first, but not for long. I was fidgety. I felt irritated and confused. Then I started to get hysterical inside our tent waking every one of my friends. And then a feeling of malaise overcame me. I started wailing. It was really weird! After a few minutes, I fainted.
Dang!
I woke up drenched in my own sweat. There were already nine of us inside the tent (initially there were six) including the team leaders who immediately attended to my needs. It was insane! I really thought I was gonna die there.
I really didn't understand what happened to me up there. When I woke up, everything went back to normal, as if nothing happened.
Weird, eh?
The culprit? AMS. Thanks to Google, I just learned about this travel-sickness called acute mountain sickness. It's really scary. That AMS. I really could have ended up like a vegetable, brain dead due to the very low supply of oxygen in my brain. Geeez!! And I haven't even finished PhD yet! Boohoo. I can only thank God for sparing me.
No worries now. I am so back to normal. And no, it wasn't coz of the MVP... it was AMS...
But... yeah, the Sea of Clouds... teehee!
Except for that episode, everything else was perfect! You wouldn't think that I'd still want to join the ascent after what happened, would you? Wrong again. Remember I'm stubborn! I still insisted on joining my group and the UPM to the summit. I was THAT determined to reach the peak. And because of my kakulitan, the team leaders eventually agreed to let me trek with them. I literally begged like a poor lost pup.
After ~1.5 hours more of trekking up the mountain, we finally reached the peak of the second highest mountain in the Philippines (>2900 meters above sea level). I was seriously nervous during the climb because I didn't want the leaders to worry about me. I was more afraid of the team leaders than dying itself. Haha. I didn't want them to think that it was a wrong decision to still let me continue to the summit. I'd die of shame if I die. That's double dead!
It's mind over matter once more.
The Summit. The summit was breathtakingly beautiful. The sight was majestic! I can't even begin to explain the feeling I had when we finally reached the pinnacle. Ibang klase! Suddenly it seemed like the world just went to a halt, and I was there, at the top of the world, in solitude, breathing cold fresh air, marveling at the grandeur of God's creation. There was a sense of communion with nature. It was breathtaking. It's as if all of my problems and bad experiences had been wiped out off the face of the Earth right there and then. Spectacular! It was all worth it. :)
